According to CBRE’s ninth Annual Nonprofit Real Estate Benchmarking Survey, nonprofits in Chicago are staffing up at a much faster rate than national counterparts, more than doubling the national average. In Chicago, 35 percent of area nonprofits reported that they planned to expand staff and/or office space in 2015, up from 24 percent in 2011.

Optimism from Chicago-area nonprofits is not limited only to staffing, but expands to spending practices as well.

In 2010, 22 percent of Chicago-area nonprofits reported attempts to raise their profile via public relations efforts, while 44 percent reported the same goal in 2015, a 100 percent increase.

Nonprofits are also looking to add to advocacy and marketing budgets in the Chicago area, with 20.6 reporting intentions to do so in 2015, up from 8.5 percent in 2010.

Nationally, this is not the case as spending on public relations efforts has decreased from 22 percent in 2010 to 19 percent in 2015, and increased spending on advocacy has remained flat at 10 percent in the same time period.

“This growth shows that the nonprofit and association sector in Chicago has recovered well in the past several years and nonprofit leaders are very confident and optimistic about the sector’s future in this market,” said Gregg Witt, senior vice president in CBRE’s Nonprofit Practice Group.

One Response to How Nonprofits Are Boosting Chicago’s Economy

It’s great to know that non-profits that do not rely on state funding to provide human services are doing so well, as this is not the case for the human service organizations that are closing at alarming rates due to the lack of state funding.